


return the sun

by unbeat



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Angst, Introspection, Jongdae centric, M/M, Past Kim Jongdae | Chen/Zhang Yi Xing | Lay, broken relationship, just a bunch of glum feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-22
Updated: 2018-01-22
Packaged: 2019-03-08 02:48:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13448925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unbeat/pseuds/unbeat
Summary: Sometimes Jongdae wishes Yixing had been cruel.





	return the sun

**Author's Note:**

> inherently a depression cycle fic - freeform and absolutely whack DABDA
> 
> unbetaed and it's like 4am so if there are any mistakes please correct me

It takes the sound of an ambulance speeding past the park to wake Jongdae up. The sun had long since set, he remembers, but the lights from the high-rise buildings surrounding the block illuminated the place well enough. He’s cold and it makes him miss the warmth of daytime; that comfort used to be why he continued to come after the first time, back when he had another person to drag him out of the rumpled niche of his bed.

Now he’s alone—has been for the past five hours (the past few months, a nasty voice in his head reminds him)—and the loose pullover he had reached for before leaving the apartment wasn’t enough to stop him from shivering. It wasn’t even his pullover. It was Yixing’s, and the last time Jongdae had touched it was when he stuffed it into the bottom of his drawer four months ago. The stupid thing still smelled like him, Jongdae focuses on reluctantly. Normally, he made it a policy to try and _not_  consciously think of his ex, to not live in the past. It worked in the beginning, or so he would like to think; he threw himself into work, and his pay reflected his hours spent overtime at the office until it became clear his output was losing its quality. The girls were quick to notice the absence of his one special somebody, and their words spread like wildfire. His supervisor threatened to dock his pay—with good intentions, of course—and Jongdae had to learn how to shove his feelings under a mask that would never really be whole.

He couldn’t really even talk to anyone about it because the friends he had made in the six years of living in the city were Yixing’s friends first and foremost, through no fault of their own. Yixing was just charismatic like that, mesmerizing to say the least, and Jongdae would bet his entire life savings that he was still that way, even months after their separation.

Sometimes Jongdae wished Yixing had been cruel. It would make leaving him behind so much easier. And sometimes he took it a step further: sometimes he wished that Yixing had fought to keep him. That he didn’t turn around and that he didn’t walk out of the apartment as if he didn’t hear Jongdae pleading for him to stay. Maybe that in itself had been cruel, Yixing walking out on a relationship that had lasted for five years and counting without so much as a glance behind him for Jongdae to see if he had unshed tears pooling in his eyes the same way he did himself. Jongdae had replayed those few minutes so many times in his head late at night, relying on his memory to figure out if it had all just gone wrong because of some words that should have probably stayed unspoken, or if it had all started out as something small, growing darker and uglier the longer they both ignored it.

When the silence in his apartment got too heavy past midnight, he used to—hell, he still does—come up with different scenarios where Yixing would have stayed. He would run out after Yixing, hug him from behind, ask him to come back inside where the cold wouldn’t bite at their coatless bodies so they could talk and get past this. He would scream after him, saying they belonged together, that nobody else would accept Yixing and his fuckups the way he did. He would go back even further in the timeline, to all the stupid little mistakes that must have added up, prevent himself from ever hurting Yixing. He would let Yixing go, but only for a little while to give him the space that they never made in their time together, and text an _I miss talking to you. Hope you’re doing okay_ that would be replied to with an _I’m alright. We should catch lunch together sometime soon._

He would finally say _I love you_ back after years, and Yixing would be so moved he could push aside all the times Jongdae never said anything. It was only wishful thinking, of course. Still, Jongdae considered it.

It took a long time reflecting on these situations for Jongdae to realize that it was all a time bomb, a relationship that would bust at the seams if you handled it headstrong, a relationship you could only let tick away until it was time to blow. Talking only worked with them in the loosest sense; they spoke to each other—you have to, to even be in a relationship, even one as open as theirs was—but it was never about what mattered, and if they ever had a conversation about _them_ and their impulsive possessiveness, it only served as foreplay to a long, fun night. They both made mistakes they had never readdressed, but that was the best part of being together, as far as Jongdae had believed. Jongdae would fuck up, and Yixing would deliberately look past it. Yixing would fuck up, and Jongdae would cheer him up with consolation sex. Something that should have been temporary turned into something longer, and Jongdae couldn’t let it go.

So much for trying to forget about Yixing, considering he was currently thinking about _Yixing_ while sitting in the park three and a half blocks away from _Yixing’s_ place in _Yixing’s_ old clothes since before the sun set.

The man was remarkable though, unforgettable really. In the beginning, what had angered Jongdae the most was how easily Yixing would creep into his mind, unobtrusive and unassuming until he _wasn’t_ and Jongdae couldn’t get him out. Now, Jongdae thinks fate had a terrible sense of humor when it decided to warp the things Jongdae loved about Yixing into things he would later hate.

Like colors. Jongdae used to think they were hollow, some abstract element that let people hide behind a seemingly significant farce. Then Yixing slowly took root in Jongdae’s mind, and Jongdae’s idea of colors was suffocated and replaced with Yixing’s raw approach to life. Yixing had chromesthesia himself, and while Jongdae could never appreciate colors the same way he did, he understood them even more. Purple became a word Yixing would use in place of love, and Jongdae embraced it, loved seeing a dash of purple in any setting and being reminded that there was someone who would warm his bed and heart at the end of the day. Fast-forward to the present, and it’s disgusting how a fucking color reduces Jongdae to such an ugly mess. Yixing and his ever-present, lingering trace are things that ruined his life, and Jongdae used to think he would resent the other until the end of time for it.

He’s been working past that, though. He’s worked through lots of things in the last few months, really. The belongings that Yixing left behind are still at his place. Jongdae had gone through them all the past week, finally accepting Yixing wasn’t going to come back. The mug that Jongdae used to fill to the brim with hot chocolate every weekend for Yixing before he left, and even some weekends after he was gone, was finally taken out of the cupboard and placed into one of three neat boxes.

The pullover was found just that afternoon, the gray heather even more faded than Jongdae had remembered. He took the pile of clothes that didn’t belong to him over to the emptiest box and carefully folded them so they could all fit in the cardboard confines. It was the hoodie that he couldn’t put away, that he had to hold to his head and inhale. After a lengthy break down into the fabric, he finally slipped it through his arms and left the apartment.

Walking through the city had been an experience spoiled by tinges of nostalgia. Jongdae wandered the streets through the late afternoon. He tried to go around as aimlessly as possible, but his thoughts and destinations all circled back to Yixing.

An outdoor sushi bar he and Yixing used to frequent ended up being where he ate dinner, and as he chewed through his solo platter, he had thought about the last time he had really walked the city. He used to take the metro to work more often than not simply because Yixing had insisted on giving him his T-money card. Yixing never took the card back, but Jongdae stopped using it by forced association. In this recent chapter of his life, he’d been taking the bus for his nine-to-fives and resorted to a taxi whenever he overworked. Seeing so many people on foot, with a clear, unclear, and feigned destination was almost relaxing. In the heart of the city, people were people, no matter if they were tourists, teens, or first- and third-shift workers. Nobody would see him in his ragged attire and know his heart was stomped on by a man whose ambitions never outshone his kindness. He was just another person driven by hunger to a longstanding establishment, and nobody would have been able to guess this was the place where he had kissed a boy for the first time in his life.

He had watched the crowds a little bit more before finishing his plate and paying. It was still light, and he had found himself walking toward Ilmol park. At this time of day and year, the caretakers still tended to flowers to make sure they lasted through the beginning of summer for festival season. Yixing had been a habitué to the park enough that he was appreciated for the help he volunteered, and Jongdae was too, by extension. Thankfully, there had been nobody to recognize him as he strolled through the paths flanked by the flowerbeds.

The area he meandered to had been the spot where they spent most of their time. It was off to the side of the park, and it didn’t border the river, so their little place was a sanctuary away from the hordes of people who visited. Yixing had picked this spot, saying it reminded him of his home in Changsha, where the rising urban development was offset, balanced, by patches of greenery. He drew inspiration from the people of the park to the people of the streets, and Jongdae had watched and listened. Walking toward the aluminum bench had tickled a sense of jamais vu—he and Yixing normally planted purple-spectrum flowers in this space, but the plants that encircled the bench were yellows and oranges strange against the violaceous backdrop of his memory.

Jongdae had sat down, drawing his knees to his chest in an attempt to get more comfortable, and he thought about Yixing until the red of the heavens finally disappeared behind the buildings. Drifting off to sleep was inevitable, but waking up to a cooler night didn’t seem like anything he could have prepared for.

He continues to sit, waiting out the moon from the sky. His bones ache, it’s late, and his pullover doesn’t protect him from shit, but his mind tells him that this is the most therapeutic activity he has done since he let Yixing go.

And he really does want to let Yixing go, from his mind _especially_ , seeing as how he’s walked the uncertainty and shadows of Yixing out through his trek into the city, but before he does, he wants to brave another risk with closure. When the birds start their morning warbles, he finally stretches out of his seat and finds the nearest exit. He has to walk on the sidewalk around the park before crossing two more streets, but he makes it without any early-morning cab drivers honking him down. Yixing’s apartment building looks no different than it ever did except the Ilchul Place logo is blinking erratically, and he takes the stairs to the fourth floor after passing the doorman through the lobby, not bothering to buzz up.

The lights ease on when he walks into the hallway. Coming this way, Yixing’s apartment was on the left, toward the middle of the hall, and Jongdae thinks about how Yixing used to complain that no matter if he used the complex’s front or back entrance, he still had to walk more than the tenants to the left and right of him. “The landlady has to walk as much as you do,” Jongdae would point out, and Yixing would pull a face at him.

He stops in front of room 507 and exhales. He doesn’t actually plan on going in, but he doesn’t pull his head away from the door, either. It’s not like he came to see Yixing, because after all he’s said and all he _hadn’t_ , he genuinely dreads that meeting. Instead, he turns around, sets back against the door, and sinks down.

There isn’t a snore rumbling through the room, but Jongdae doesn’t worry. Yixing had never been a snorer anyway, mostly staying quiet in his sleep until noon, and even during the little while when they hadn’t been together, he didn’t stay at his apartment often. A waste of money, if you asked Jongdae, but he had never been in a position to criticize, not when he never once offered Yixing to move in with him either.

He leans his head back and closes his eyes. Like this, it’s not hard to imagine that he’s forgotten his keys to the place and he’s just waiting for Yixing to arrive and save the night. He would thank his knight in shining armor, in words and action, and they’d spend their energy on trying to achieve orgasmic nirvana until the morning came before they did. Jongdae would make breakfast for two at ass o’clock because he had to hightail it to work, and he’d text Yixing throughout the day, and they’d _laugh_ because part of the foundation that kept them together was meaningless chatter that kept them close but not too close, and he’d come home, or as close to home would ever get, to the apartment and find the breakfast he slapped together still on the counter, and he _wouldn’t care_  because it honestly didn’t matter that much, did it? Or was that something he just told himself to disguise the truth in, that he loved having Yixing like this, that he didn’t want to upset the precarious balance of their undefined sex-with-benefriends-turned-more relationship because he was _selfish_  and in love?

The elevator on the side of the hall Jongdae didn’t come from dings, and he turns his head to see the landlady, shuffling forward with a dog in her arms. As she neared his position on the ground, she studied him with a predator’s gaze, and Jongdae slowly gets to his feet and bows.

“Good morning, auntie, you’re up early,” he whispers. She continues to stare at him without a word, and oh, this is awkward because she, better than anyone else, could figure out what happened to him and Yixing based on his absence alone.

They stand in silence for a few more minutes, with Jongdae feeling slightly rattled, and he breaks the peace with, “I’ll be going now, then. Take care.” He walks off, and he’s halfway to the stairwell when she rasps, “Do you want that room?”

He freezes, and doubles back over to her as to not wake other tenants. “Do I want that room? Is it up for rent?”

“No, but your Zhang boy moved out three months ago. Back in March.” Her eyes glint, and Jongdae pushes down the nauseous feeling that overcomes him.

“Do you know… do you know where he went?” His chest is tight, but he forces himself to exhale as she pushes her way into her own room and signals him in. He trails behind her, following weakly, and she lets her dog, Dongji, if Jongdae remembered correctly, down before going to another room. Dongji sniffs around his legs, and Jongdae gets down on his knees to rub at the fur. She returns with a key, placing it in Jongdae’s hands, and sits in the closest recliner.

“He didn’t have to tell me what happened, you know.” She raises an eyebrow at him, and Jongdae isn’t sure how to proceed.

He settles with a safe, “Ah, auntie, I would hope he knew better than to burden you with our problems.” Ending with a charming smile, he looks down at the key in his hand. The tape from where Yixing wrote “CHEN” is still on the key head, and he thumbs at it, trying to stick the peeling back onto the surface.

She waves dismissively. “It became my problem when he told me to keep it open until you came by here. He’s already paid rent for the rest of the year, poor boy, because he didn’t know when you would be coming, if you would be coming at all.” The snort she gives coincides with the thud his heart makes. “Go on, now. The room is yours until the middle of December. You can leave the key with the lobby or hand it to me, it doesn’t matter.”

Jongdae backs to the door slowly and tries to shoo Dongji into the room. He bows, hesitantly, and whispers, “Thank you, auntie.”

The door closes on him, and he turns to the other side of the hall. It shouldn’t be so hard, he thinks, to open the door to 507 now after all the drunken and sex-fueled fumbles he had handled with Yixing. He sticks the key in, and turns it, apprehensive. The locking mechanism gives, and the door swings open with a push.

He steps in, and everything feels off. The blankets that Yixing kept on the furniture are gone, pillows stripped of cases laying bare at the edges. The windows are drawn open to a brick view of the adjacent building. The kitchen area is cleared of snacks and stray plates. The instruments that used to clutter the sides of the room were only in his mind and memory, and Jongdae had to stop himself from reaching out to touch the unfilled spaces. He had never been in a room that felt so empty.

He’s thinking he’ll give the key back to the landlady right away when he steps into what used to be Yixing’s room. The bed was stripped of its sheets and spread, but a note rested on the nightstand beside it. Jongdae’s hands tremble when he folds it open, and he reads.

And he sinks onto the floor against the bed, and he reads the note again.

And again. And again.

When the paper beneath him starts to get barraged with tears, he folds it and puts it in the pullover’s pocket, but his head keeps repeating the words that seemed to be imprinted in purple on the back of his eyelids.

> _Jongdae-yah, Chen-ssi, I miss you. I hated you. I love you. So much went wrong during our time together, but I hope I am the only one hurting from this._
> 
> _In my dreams, I told the truth from the beginning. In my dreams, you love me and I don’t want to face reality. Maybe if I am honest for once, my suffering won’t be so painful. I loved you, and I love you, and I am selfish, cowardly, so I left._
> 
> _Do you remember my stories of Changsha and the juxtaposition of the natural and the engineered? I have to go back. During my time with you, I thought I had found a new home at Ilmol Park to replace Changsha. Instead, it was you who became my home, and that scared me. My feelings for you were true, but I made myself seem aloof when you were cold, and I couldn’t balance it, so I am running away._
> 
> _It’s impossible to forget you, and this hint of a lifetime with you leaves so much more to be desired. Thank you for letting me love you from afar. Live your life well, Kim Jongdae._

**Author's Note:**

> me: write something happy! without smut!  
> the minotaur who writes through me: that’s too hard  
> me: Understandable have a nice day


End file.
